The Mask, she willed the stones and bones. Find the Mask.
Nothing answered. No tug, no whisper of power. She exhaled through her nostrils. The Mask, she willed them.
There was nothing.
Her heart thundered, but she tried again. A different route. Thought of their common origin—the one she and the Trove shared. The Cauldron.
Yawning emptiness answered.
Nesta furrowed her brow, clenching the items harder. Pictured the Cauldron: the vast bowl of darkest iron, so large multiple people could have used it as a bathtub. It had a physical shape, yet when that icy water had swallowed her, there had been no bottom. Just a chasm of freezing water that had soon become utter darkness. The thing that had existed before light; the cradle from which all life had come.
Sweat beaded on her brow, as if her very body rebelled against the memory, but she made herself recall how it had sat in the King of Hybern’s war-tent, squatting atop the reeds and rugs, a primordial beast that had been half-asleep when she’d entered.
And then it had opened an eye. Not one she could see, but one that she could feel fixed on her. It had widened as it realized who stood there: the female who had taken so much, too much. It had narrowed all of its depthless power, its rage, upon her, a cat trapping a mouse with its paw.
Her hand shook.
“Nesta?”
She couldn’t breathe.
“Nesta.”
She couldn’t endure it, the memory of that ancient horror and fury—
She opened her eyes. “I can’t,” she rasped. “I can’t. The power—I don’t think I have it anymore.”
“It’s there. I’ve seen it in your eyes, felt it in my bones. Try again.”
She couldn’t summon it. Couldn’t face it. “I can’t.” She dropped the stones and bones into their dish.
She couldn’t endure the disappointment in Cassian’s voice, either, as he said, “All right.”
She didn’t eat dinner with him. Didn’t do anything except crawl into her bed and stare up at the darkness, and free-fall into it.
It was searching for her.
Winding through the hallways of the House, wending like a dark snake, it searched and sniffed and hunted for her.
She couldn’t move from her bed. Couldn’t open her eyes to sound the alarm, to flee.
She felt it come closer, crawling up the stairs. Down her hallway.
She couldn’t move her body. Couldn’t open her eyes.
Darkness slid through the crack between her door and the stone floor.
No—it couldn’t have found her. It would catch her this time, hold her down on this bed and rip from her everything she had taken from it.
The darkness slithered to her bed, and she forced her eyes open to see it gather over her, a cloud with no shape, no form, but such wicked presence that she knew its name before it leaped.
She screamed as the Cauldron’s darkness pinned her to the bed, and then there was nothing but the horrible weight of it filling her body, tearing her apart from the inside out—
And then nothing.
Cassian jolted awake and reached for the knife on his nightstand.
He didn’t know why. He’d had no nightmare, heard no sound.
Yet terror and dread sluiced through him, ratcheting up his heartbeat. The lone Siphon on his hand glowed like fresh blood, as if also seeking an enemy to strike.
Nothing.
But the air had gone cold as ice. So cold his breath clouded, and then the lamps flared to life. Flared and flickered, flashing, as if desperately signaling to him.
As if the House were begging him to run.
He vaulted from the bed, and the door opened before he could careen into it. Launching into the hall, knife in hand, he didn’t care that he was in his undershorts, or that he only had one Siphon. Az’s door flung open a heartbeat later, and his brother’s steps closed in behind him as Cassian hit the stairs and raced down them.
He’d reached the landing of Nesta’s level when she screamed.
Not a scream of rage, but of pure terror.
His body distilled at that scream, as if it were no more than the knife in his hand, a weapon to be used to eliminate and destroy any threats to her, to kill and kill and not stop until every last enemy was dead or bleeding.
Her door was open, and light blazed from within. Silvery, cold light.
“Cassian,” Az warned, but Cassian pushed himself faster, running as swiftly as he ever had in his life. He slammed into the archway of her door, rebounding off it and into the room, and came up short at what he beheld.
Nesta lay in her bed, body arched. Bathed in silver fire.
She was screaming, hands ripping at the sheets, and that fire burned and burned without destroying the blankets, the room. Burned and writhed, as if devouring her.
“Holy gods,” Azriel breathed.
The fire radiated cold. Cassian had never heard of such a power amongst the High Fae. Fire, yes—but fire with warmth. Not this icy, terrible twin.
Nesta arched again, sobbing through her teeth.
Cassian lunged for her, but Azriel grabbed him around the middle. He snarled, debating whether he could rip out of Azriel’s arms, but the hold Az had on him was too clever.
Nesta screamed again, and a word appeared in it. No.
She began shouting it, pleading, No, no, no.
Nesta arched once more, and that fire sucked in, as if a great inhale had been made, and was about to be exhaled, rupturing through the world—
The windows of the room blew out.
Night burst in, full of shadows and wind and stars.
And as Nesta erupted, silver fire blasting outward, Rhys pounced.
He smothered her fire with his darkness, as if he’d dropped a blanket on it. Nesta screamed, and this time it was a sound of pain.
The night cleared enough that Cassian could see Rhys at the bed, roaring something that the wind and fire and stars drowned out. But from his lips, Cassian knew it was her name. “Nesta!” Rhys shouted. The wind cleared enough for Cassian to hear this time. “Nesta! This is a dream! ”
Nesta’s fire reared again, and Rhys shoved a wave of blackness upon her. The entire House shook.
Cassian thrashed against Azriel, bellowing at Rhys to stop it, stop hurting her—
Rhys’s darkness pushed down, and Nesta’s flame battled upward, as if their two powers were swords clashing in battle, fighting for the advantage.
Dominance thundered in Rhys’s words this time. “Wake up. It’s a dream. Wake up.”
Nesta still fought, and Rhys gritted his teeth, power gathering again.
“Let me go,” Cassian said to Azriel. “Az, let me go right now.” Azriel, to his surprise, did.
Cassian knew the odds were against him. He had a knife and one Siphon. To get caught in the magic between Nesta and Rhys would be akin to entering a lion’s den unarmed.
But he walked to where silver fire and darkest night battled.
And he said with steady calm, “Nesta.”
The silver fire flickered.
“Nesta.”
He could have sworn her consciousness, that power, shifted toward him. Just long enough.
The wave of Rhys’s power that hit her wasn’t the brute attack of earlier, but a soft wave that washed over that flame. Banked it.
Rhys went still in a way that told Cassian his brother was no longer fully present, but rather in the mind of the female who had gone unmoving upon the bed. He’d rarely thought twice about Rhys’s gifts as a daemati—Feyre’s gift, too—but he’d never been more grateful for it.